Customer Reviews

Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life

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I just saw Patricia Neal's superlative performance in Elia Kazan's still-amazing "A Face in the Crowd" for the first time on DVD this past week and was reminded what a searing screen presence she could be. Author Stephen Michael Shearer, a former actor and longtime friend of Neal's, has seen fit to write a comprehensive biography of the actress just as she turns eighty this year. Her work is definitely worth revisiting, and what's more, her life is thick enough with professional triumphs and personal traumas to justify the rather expansive 441-page length. It's obvious why Shearer has taken such an interest in the actress's fascinating life, and he can certainly be guilty of providing a fair amount of fawning to go along with his sharp insights, especially in the early parts of the book.

With her striking beauty and throaty bluegrass-tinged voice, Neal achieved success early, first hitting big on Broadway in Lillian Hellman's "Little Foxes" prequel, "Another Part of the Forest", and then scooped up by Hollywood in 1949. In short order, she co-starred as headstrong Dominique Francon in the lavish, highly flawed adaptation of Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" and immediately embarked on a five-year affair with screen legend Gary Cooper, very married and a quarter century older. While it was not quite the level of the Ingrid Bergman-Roberto Rossellini scandal happening at almost the same time, Neal still faced not only a cold-blooded industry but also an unwanted abortion and ultimately a nervous breakdown despite strong early impressions in 1950's "The Breaking Point" (said to be Hemingway's favorite adaptation of his work) and the 1951 sci-fi classic, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (uttering her famous words -"Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!"). Neal married famed children's author Roald Dahl after the Cooper affair ended. As she started to raise a family, she made a comeback in Kazan's masterwork which led to her feline turn as the interior decorator in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and her Oscar-winning performance as the sensual, worldly wise housekeeper Alma in "Hud".

Despite her impressive professional success, the most interesting, obviously devastating parts of the book occur after her career peak in "Hud" when she tragically suffered three burst cerebral aneurisms while pregnant. Dahl was her constant, goading caretaker but also the source of escalating personal pain as he embarked on an extramarital affair that finally ended their marriage after thirty years in 1983. Shearer covers these years in great detail, but I think his portrayal of Neal's obviously complex relationship with Dahl could have delved somewhat deeper into the impact of the strokes and the death of their first child on both parties. The author also remains light on the facts that could have precluded Neal's medical condition at the time, even though her long-term recovery is covered in painstaking detail here. Afterward, she was able to turn in stellar work in 1968's "The Subject Was Roses" and 1971's "The Homecoming", the precursor to the long-running TV series, "The Waltons". Overall, the author's admiration for his subject remains uncompromised, and he succeeds in painting a celebratory portrait of an actress who never seems to get her due.

Stephen Michael Shearer has endeavored to tell the story of movie icon Pat Neal in a no-nonsense, "loose the frills" way.

By now, there isn't a movie buff around who does not know about the Patricia Neal/ Gary Cooper romance. Unlike others who might make it seem holy or even downright tawdry, the author gives us the facts and dates and skips the frills and sermons. Good.

However, especially in dealing with such an interesting subject as Ms. Neal, the author should be taken to task for not probing a bit below the surface. He gives us facts (and there is little to doubt the accuracy) but not reasons. One case in point: When Pat Neal's husband - Roald Dahl - began having affairs, their children sided with their father to the point where it was suggested that Ms. Neal "not bother to come home for the Christmas holidays". Disturbing and interesting but the reader walks away without ever discovering where the friction was between mother and children (at the end, they all seemed to have resolved their differences but how and what was the original cause?)

The book is an easy read and fairly interesting if you can look past some of the glossing over of facts in favor of dates.

An Unquiet Life is well written and provides extensive information about the Hollywood and Broadway scenes in the 40's, 50's, and 60's. The photographs, from Miss Neal's personal collection as well as those from other sources, are superb.
This new biography serves as a companion piece to Miss Neal's wonderful autobiography, As I Am, and they should be read together.

I bought this book because I have always been a Patricia Neal fan. I love her brilliant acting, her beauty, her charismatic personal style. I also knew that she had had a very troubled life--that she had successfully battled a series of strokes, had a child die, and been unhappily married to notoriously cranky, ill-tempered, misanthropic author Roald Dahl.

Stephen Michael Shearer has meticulously gathered the facts of Neal's life without providing even one single insight into her personality. We don't know what kind of child she was, or adolescent, and we are equally as uninformed as she enters into a miserable marriage (which I knew about from having first read Jeremy Treglown's bio of Dahl), moves to the U.K., (where she was never comfortable or felt at home), achieves career success, has numerous tragedies with her children (one dies, the other suffers permanent brain damage), has life-threatening strokes while pregnant, learns of her husband's long affair, is divorced by him, etc. etc. etc. Shearer assiduously avoids offering insights into Neal's mind, heart, emotions, psychology. I wonder what exactly he thinks a biography is supposed to be? He actually achieves a unique feat by taking on a subject so filled with extreme emotions and avoiding every single one of them. It would almost be considered comedic, but here, the joke is on the consumer. I paid full price for this "biography"...now it's going into a re-cycling bin somewhere.

I also possess Patricia Neal's auto-biography, which I plan to read as soon as possible after having slogged through Shearer's ANTI-BIOGRAPHY.

Shearer's bio on the excellent Patricia Neal is a well researched, heart felt and beautifully executed work. Long a fan of Ms. Neal's, I thought I knew all there was to know about this superlative actress, but I was quite wrong. Gossipy when it has to be, and never over the top, this is a must read book for all fans of Ms. Neal's and/or any of her great films such as THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, HUD and THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES. Here, the subject is Neal and it is covered to perfection. A fine read.

Normally I don't give bad reviews, however this time I'm going to make an exception. The subject matter of the book is the wonderful talented actress Patricia Neal, the problem with the book is, that the author drowns the reader in details of plot lines of films that makes NO DIFFERENCE at all to the story. WHO CARES? This detail is distracting from the story, and does nothing to add to the story, it only serves to detract from the story. I purchased this book and the authors book about Heddy Lamar, and I couldn't even finish the Heddy Lamar book because of the very same issues. I hope that I can finish this one because I'm very interested in Miss Neal from seeing her on Private Screenings with Robert Osborne.

Dissapointing is the report from me on this book...If you want a good read on the subject matter, check out the Actress's autobiography.

This is a wonderful book about a brave, strong lady. In fact, for me, Patricia Neal is the definition of the word LADY. It's hard to believe that this is the author's only book, because it is excellent, and thorough, and fair.

After she became "Patricia Neal The Actress" she appeared to be sailing along, enjoying her new-found friendships and her professional life, but was somehow compelled to fall in love with married men. She immediately felt bad for her behavior, and in her later years was given the opportunity to make amends to those she hurt.

Unfortunately, she married a disturbed women-hating man, and paid the price for years and years until HE finally ended it. Her series of strokes apparently almost completely overwhelmed her, psychologically as well as medically, and her fight back to a kind of health took a lot out of her, during which time she was unable to be a real mother to her children. Her husband forced her into a strenuous life of recovery, during which time he usurped her place in the home in every detail.

Over the years she was able to regain a semblance of her acting career as well as the love of her children to the extent that they were able to give it. I'm glad that she apparently found a great and welcome source of peace in her final years.

I odered this book on August 12, 2010. Today is August 27, 2010. This book still HAS NOT been shipped and to add insult to injury I have not received any explanation as to why it was not shipped. Doing business with amazon? forget it. JJB